


Harry (17)

by orphan_account



Series: failure by design [The Watson Vignettes] [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF John, Backstory, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, First Time, Harry-centric, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied Sexual Content, Love/Hate, Misogyny, Misunderstandings, POV Second Person, Protective Siblings, Self-Hatred, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:55:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry (17): "Just after nine, you bend over Jen, whisper, quivering, excited, “Let me,” and your breath mingles, and from the corner of your eye, you see a shadow in the doorway."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harry (17)

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE heed the warning(s)!

Harry (17)

 

Everyone is out of the house. John the entire day at rugby with his mates (he started playing it a year ago) and staying with, you think, Joe tonight; mum for the weekend with one of the few friends that will still have her; father working evening shifts again, not back until three forty-five in the morning. Everyone’s out of the house, so you’re alone, and because Jen shares a room with her brother, you came to your place to be alone.

You figured out a while ago that the weight of breasts in your palm and the roundness of hips and the smell of the place between a girl’s legs is the reason boys are boring to you. It’s hateful, makes you more different than you already are. At the same time, it’s wonderful. You didn’t know such a thing existed, and it’s yours. It’s yours completely. No one can take it from you.

Just after nine, you have your first orgasm at another person’s hand. You feel beautiful, and luxurious, and warm, all over. You never want it to stop. And it’s yours. You’re half-naked with a lovely girl on your couch on a safe night, and, God, it’s _yours_.

Just after nine, you bend over Jen, whisper, quivering, excited, “Let me,” and your breath mingles, and from the corner of your eye, you see a shadow in the doorway.

Father.

A numbness overcomes you, as if you’ve been standing in cold water for an hour.

 _Will I die?_ you think. It feels detached, like someone else is thinking it. _Will I die now? Will I die like this?_

You tell Jen to go. Something in your face makes her understand that she needs to. Father lets her pass. His eyes are on you. You dress, mechanically, but you feel naked. You feel so horribly naked.

When father takes a step into the room, you lose control.

Usually you’re quiet. You’re quiet, you’re stammering, you’re unmoving, because it’s worse when you say ‘please’ or try to defend yourself. Usually you’re letting it happen because it’s easier, because it hurts less.

But when father takes a step into the room tonight, everything’s different.

He snarls, “You’re an _abomination_ ,” and you snarl back, “I’m your daughter, of course I am,” and when he slaps you straight across the face, you strike back. You’re blind. You’re deaf. You’re _rage_. That he dares to come home tonight of all nights, that he dares to take _this_ from you, this, God, no, he _won’t_ , you won’t let him.

For the first time since you were eleven and grabbed his wrist to stop him from touching John, you touch your father back. You touch him back with your fist and your legs and your teeth and your feet, you kick him, you bite him, you claw at him, you drag your fingernails straight across his face until you draw blood, and it’s not enough. You want more, you want more, you want to see him cry blood from the eyes for all the tears you’ve cried.

First it’s good. First it’s violence and fury and adrenaline, first it’s _you won’t_ and _I’m not letting you_ , first it’s you screaming, “I hate you, I fucking hate you, I want you to die, why can’t you just _die_ ,” screaming out all your hate and hurt—

—until you’re screaming in fear and pain.

The adrenaline disappears. You can see again. You see his face, a demented, disgusted rictus. You can hear again. You hear, “You fucking _dyke_ , on my couch,” and, “Fucking abnormal,” and the words are daggers that hurt more than his fists. Your rage stays, but it’s a rage so impotent you’re crying not just from physical pain but from helplessness. There’s disgust, not just for him but for you too, because you can’t do a thing. You can’t do a thing, he’s tall, he’s taller than you, he always is, always has been, and you can’t do a thing, he’ll kill you, all your screams and kicks and punches are useless you’re useless he’ll _kill_ you—

You’re disoriented when he’s pulled away from you. You can’t feel a thing. Your body is numb, from something else this time. You can’t move. You don’t know what’s going on.

John’s there.

He’s hanging with his arms around father’s neck, tries to strangle him with his forearms. Father gives a shout, surges up and grips at John’s arms to tear them away. They’re fighting, not two feet away from you. You can’t move. You’re wet with your own blood, your face feels like pulp. A tooth is loose. You’ve lost a fingernail. John is fighting with father. Father is touching John.

A terror seizes you, so strong you struggle to your feet. You’re swaying. You’re saying, “John,” and, “John,” and you can’t think, and you’re moving towards them, and John is yelling your name, and father is roaring, and father’s fist flies out and into your stomach, and you double over, you’re retching blood.

Father pushes John away from himself so he stumbles into the table, and John, oh, God, John who is fourteen and only just growing into himself, whose shoulders have only just become a bit broader, comes to stand in front of you, and snarls, chin up, “Try to get past me,” like playing rugby for a year means he can take on a grown, enraged man.

Father starts laughing. “Do you know what you’re defending there?” he says, words full of dark relish. “Do you know what she is, John, your precious sister?”

Your terror turns sick. He’s going to say it. He’s going to tell John. John, who has started visiting the church on Sundays on his own. He’s going to know.

“Got that right,” John says. “She’s my sister.”

Oh, God. John, John, he can’t know. You can’t—you can’t lose him—

“She’s a goddamned dyke, your fucking sister,” father spits out. “A fucking _homosexual_.”

Everything comes to a standstill.

 _Homosexual_. You’ve never said it. You don’t think you’ve ever even consciously thought it. Father’s the first. Homosexual. He’s the first, and he stole it. He _stole_ it. He’s taken from you what was yours, and you can’t ever get it back. It’s dirty now. It’s bad now. It’s ugly now.

You think you make a sound. You think it’s a sob. You think it sounds like ‘John’.

John doesn’t speak. He doesn’t say a word. He’s just standing there, before you still, looking at father.

Father says, “So get the fuck out of the way,” and he moves towards you.

John is fast. He grabs the bottle of wine from the table, the one Jen and you had tonight. He slams it against the table, and it breaks apart. He’s holding the neck of it and points with the sharp, jagged glass edges towards father. “Take one more step,” he says. He says it very softly. His hand is very steady. “And I’ll hurt you.”

You feel chilled to the bone. You’ve never seen John angry. Not like this. This is his anger. Calm, soft, quiet.

Dangerous.

His lip is split. He’s bleeding. It’s dripping down his chin.

John, fourteen. His voice hasn’t broken yet. He’s standing before you, and he’s taller than you. It should be you. You should be standing before him.

John’s bleeding.

You feel a furious sort of humiliation you’re completely helpless to. Distantly, you hear steps retreating, and a door slamming. You remain sitting there, crying and bleeding, _being protected_ while you could never protect him. (Could never protect yourself.) You feel weak with it, you feel weak, and for a moment you hate yourself so much for being a girl and for being gay, that it feels like a slap in the face when John kneels down next to you after some time and touches his hand gingerly to your shoulder.

You instinctually push him away from you, and he staggers back. You’re completely gone, completely lost in your humiliation and rage and hurt, that you don’t know what you’re saying until you do.

“I don’t need you,” you hiss, and it’s shrill and panicked. “I _hate_ you.”

In the second that you speak the words, you mean them. In that second, you feel it all: you hate John, you hate him irrationally, stupidly, aggressively, selfishly. You hate him for being a boy. You hate him for being better than you. You hate him for loving you. You hate him for making you love him. You don’t want to love him. It hurts.

The words are more brutal than anything tonight, and John may be armoured against father’s physical violence, but he isn’t armoured against your verbal violence.

He stares at you with parted lips and wide eyes before his eyes shutter for the second time in his life. For the second time in his life, he says, “All right,” and turns to leave.

You’re alone with your blood and the shards of glass on the floor feeling like you just broke something you won’t ever be able to repair. 

\--- 

An hour later, you move. You don’t go to the bathroom, though you’d need it, and not to your room, though you want to.

You go to John’s room.

The door is ajar. You swallow. You can’t remember when you’ve last been here. John and you haven’t been talking much. (Lately.) (In general.) You push the door open. John is sitting on his bed, reading. It’s a small, thick book, with a dark leather cover. You recognise it instantly. You freeze in the doorway.

His face jerks up when he notices you. He says, “Harry,” all breath, and makes to get up, but you take a step back, your eyes on his book.

Now that father’s said _homosexual_ , you feel it all over you, like it’s branded into your skin and everyone can see. It’s not yours anymore, it’s everyone else’s, and everyone can see. John does. He knows, now.

He’s reading the bible. You can’t find any words. You stand there with your pulpy face in your bloody clothes, and you can’t find any words.

John does. He shoots up and throws the book onto the bed behind him. He’s holding out his hand, palm down, as if to reassure you. He says, haltingly, “It’s not—it just…”

He stops. He takes a deep breath and swallows. Then he says, “It reminds me of grandma.”

A relief washes over you so intense that your knees buckle. You catch yourself in time, hand on the doorframe, and, head hanging, you slowly nod. You understand. You understand completely.

You have a vivid picture of him being in your arms. John would hold on tight. John would be warm. He is small. He would be shaking. His head would be firm against your shoulder, still. His fingers would hurt your back.

You wouldn’t let go.

You’re standing inside his door frame looking at the floor, and he’s standing in his room staring at you. Neither of you moves.

In the end, you don’t speak of any of it, and you don’t apologise. You just sit on his bed, and you allow him to take care of your face with the first-aid kit from the bathroom. His face is young, and his hands are gentle. They were steady earlier, and now they’re shaking. You feel you should shake too, as if in sympathy, but you don’t feel much. When John tells you to see a doctor next morning, you don’t refuse.

He cleans and treats your wounds. He takes care of you. You allow him to take care of you.

You’re not sure you like it.

You’re not sure know who of you needs it more.


End file.
